In order to get into the hang of academic writing it is sometimes helpful to examine closely the way in which other writers structure their work.

Swales and Feak (1) offer the use of skeleton sentences to achieve this. This where all of the content is stripped out of a paragraph in order to reveal the syntactic moves. They suggest that those wishing to improve their writing should experiment with putting their own content into these skeletons. This is the equivalent of walking in someone else’s footprints.

Here are some that Barbara Kamler and I use in our workshops on academic writing.

SKELETON ONE

(1) This chapter begins with a brief discussion of…………….(key theoretical approach you will take in your research) its history and major theorists.

(2) Next, I look at how ……………. (state the problem you are researching) is constructed in education.

(3) Then the chapter examines the literature about …………..( the problem you are addressing) that has been produced over the last …………. years.

(4) The chapter concludes with a look at some notable scholars …………..( names) from ………………..(name the theory again ) perspective.

From Ladson Billings, G (1999) Preparing teachers for diverse student populations: a critical race theory perspective, in A Iran-Nejad and P. D Pearson (Eds) Review of Research in Education. (pp. 211-247)WashingtonDC: American Educational Research Association.

SKELETON TWO

In this paper I discuss the main arguments that deal with the issue of…………

(2) it is my purpose to highlight the ……………… by pointing to…………….

(3) The paper is structured as follows. After giving an overview of the scope of the …………. I review the particular……………

(4) Next I provide a summary of …………….

(1) Finally in the last two sections I consider several implications for ……. and argue that…………….

(2) It owes a factual and interpretative debt to ________________________and _____________________ and__________________.

(3) In other respects it has benefited from the _________________ presented by _____________ and from ____________’s treatment of ________________ ( ).

(4) In these writings it is possible to find descriptions and analyses of____________ ________________________________which this thesis does not intend to match.

(5) What it rather does is to present a broader perspective on ______________ than is usually managed, with a more consistently maintained ________________, a greater attention to ____________________, a fuller sense of the range of _____________within a framework which conveys ________________________.

(6) If it is successful in these respects, then much is owed to______________________.

These examples are really useful, thank you; I will definitely utilise them. A friend used a similar skeleton to construct an abstract and completed the abstract within 1/2 hour, after agonising over it for days.